Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
This essay takes up from the essay " Thousands of Generations. " In that essay we saw that God has promised to show His faithfulness to thousands of generations of those who love Him. If God is going to do this, then human history will have to last for thousands…
11. The Life of Abraham 2006 – Noah dies (Gen. 9:29). 2008 – Abram is born of Terah in Ur (Gen. 11:26-32; 12:4; Acts 7:4). 2026 – Reu ben Peleg dies (Gen. 11:20-21). 2042? – Abram and Terah move to Haran (Gen. 11:31-32). 2049 – Serug ben Reu dies (Gen.…
While this is dated June/July, this essay is actually being finalized and prepared for shipment in November. What this reflects more than anything else is my personal reluctance to take up this topic. The reason is that a number of friends and acquaintances have over the years, some rather recently,…
After Cain murdered Abel and was driven out of the land of Eden, we read that he had a son whom he named Enoch, and that he founded a city that he also named Enoch (Genesis 4:17). The city, we are told, was named for his son. This was the…
Now we notice that God said that it was not good for the man to be alone in this task. God determined to make a helper suited to the man (Genesis 2:18). In context, the woman is to help the priest guard and beautify the sanctuary, home, and workplace. Two…
Genesis 2:15 says that the first man was commissioned by God to dress and to keep the garden. The garden was located within the land of Eden, which was one among many lands on the earth according to Genesis 2:8-14. The garden was the place where God would meet with…
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A passage from Human, All Too Human: A Book for Free Spirits, Revised Edition pinpoints the internal tensions of liberal order. Nietzsche writes, “If there are to be institutions there must be a kind of will, instinct, imperative, anti-liberal to the point of malice: the will to tradition, to authority,…
Descartes is accused of proposing that the human soul is a “ghost in the machine.” Does he think of the body mechanistically? It’s true that he speaks of “our body’s machine” that operates in large measure “unaided” ( The Passions of the Soul: An English Translation of Les Passions De…
Peter Leithart is one of the most creative and provocative theological writers today. He manages to combine sound critical scholarship with accessible writing and a flair for the dramatic. Who else would think of defending the Emperor Constantine against his legions of critics today? Leithart does so not just to…
Shapin again ( The Scientific Revolution (science.culture) , 72-73): He offers a fascinating description of the challenges of persuasion in early modern science. Galileo claimed that his telescope proved there were moons around Jupiter. Many of those who looked through his device didn’t see what he saw. Some refused to…
Debates among historians about the relative weight of “intellectual” and “social” factors seem “rather silly” to Steven Shapin. What’s needed, he argues in The Scientific Revolution (science.culture) is a sociology of scientific knowledge “to display knowledge making and knowledge holding as social processes” (p. 9). He thinks too that the…
My pastoral colleague, Toby Sumpter, has just come out with a wonderful commentary on Job, Job Through New Eyes: A Son for Glory . I am biased in favor of my friend, but I’m confident that even an unbiased reader will find a lot to like. Toby reads Job as…
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